Happily Never After
by avenged
Summary: Oneshot, SasuSaku. In real life, you have to make your own happy endings.


**AU and OOC.**

**This is my coping mechanism. Don't like it? Deal.**

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

He didn't know what to make of her.

"Hey," he said slowly, his eyes meeting hers—dark, empty shells.

"Hey," she said back, her head bowing low, ragged bangs falling across her forehead, and he thought he had never seen her so beautiful.

"About what I told you…"

"It's all right. It's fine."

And she'd pick up her books and leave him to watch her retreating back, her slender form getting smaller and smaller as she almost ran away, her heels _click-clacking_ on the tile.

He watched her go. Slip out of reach. Fade.

_Damnit_, he told himself. _You're losing her._

And you're going to lose yourself.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

The world forgot the glimmer in her eyes.

But he did not.

There's an old picture of them both when they were young. She's smiling—so _not_ photogenic, she used to laugh as she nearly ripped the picture in two.

No, he said, his hand resting lightly on top of hers. I like it.

_I like you._

And as his reward, he got to see a splash of happiness across her features. An expression that was only meant for him.

He holds the picture now. Rubs it between his fingers. Curses the fingerprints now forming over their photographed selves. Takes it. Frames it behind glass. Imprisons the memory so he will never, ever lose it like he's losing her.

Fate was quite the character.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

He blamed himself.

"I'm leaving," he'd said to her over coffee at her favorite café.

The tension was so thick that he could have taken it, wrapped it around his neck, and strangled himself with it.

He wished now that he had. He wouldn't have had to see the droplets forming in the corners of her eyes, wouldn't have had to hear the crack in her voice as she tried so hard to maintain her composure, to keep up the strength that he'd come to love and lean on.

"Oh, Sasuke," she said softly, taking a sip of her latte.

_And how will I lean on _him, she thought, _from thousands of miles away?_

It's not that far. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that far.

But he knew that was a lie.

You can't cross the ocean when your boat is stuck on the other side.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

He tried to forget. Or so he told himself.

But he still had her picture in his wallet. He still had her smell in his mind. He still had the feel of her on his fingertips.

She did not call, she did not write, she did nothing at all to keep in touch with him.

He forgave her. He hated himself too.

But he knew she was still thinking of him, for he thought of her all the time.

He could forgive.

But he could never forget.

Never, ever, ever.

Never is a very long time.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

She pressed on.

_Anything that doesn't kill me_, she reminded herself, _makes me stronger._

And with him gone, she learned to hold herself up. She learned to stand on her own. She learned how to exist without his shadow always by her side.

But her hand still curled in the shape of his. His laugh still rang in her ears.

_I will remember you forever._

Beautiful things can't be forgotten.

And when she got the phone call, she nearly died again.

Because every night when she went to bed, she still saw his face before she closed her eyes. Because every night when she tried to sever her bonds, she found them thick as iron chains, and she knew that she was a captive of her past, but she didn't care because Fate, demon that it was, would bring them back together.

_Bring him back. Dear God, please, bring him back._

But for now…she would wait.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a girl who died.

It is now seven years later.

Brown leaves crunch under her sneakers as she walks quickly across campus, the brisk wind not touching her, not even prickling her skin as she moves, moves towards her center of gravity that she hasn't seen for so long but has felt every day of her life.

He sees her and takes a step forward.

She has not aged a day.

And she raises her eyes, and he sees the flash of joy in her eyes, and he feels a warmth overcome him, and she is in his arms, and she's finally crying the tears she's kept in for so many years, and he is crying too, and he wonders how many years she's lost mourning over him.

"Hey," she finally says.

"Hey," he says back, his smile stretching wider than the thousand miles between them.

"About what I told you…"

"It's all right. It's fine. Everything's fine, now that…now…"

And she doesn't finish, and he doesn't finish for her, because it is all finished now and holding her here, beneath a gnarled tree shedding the last of its leaves before winter, feeling her body nearly melt against his skin…this, _this_ is enough.

"Once upon a time," she murmurs, "I died. But not really. Because I never lost you. I just needed to learn where to look."

She takes his hand.

"And no matter where I end up, no matter where you are, we will always, always be able to look up and know that the other one of us is under the same sky."

_Iloveyou._

_Iknow._

"And we will never, ever lose each other."

Never is a very,

Very

long time.

But maybe—_maybe—_it's just long enough.

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_And they lived happily never after._


End file.
